Extra

UC police located missing Rice University student Matthew Wilson in Dwinelle Hall on the UC Berkeley campus tonight (Wednesday), and are investigating him for theft of university property, according to the Berkeley Police Department and UC Berkeley police.
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Contra Costa County Public Health Director Wendel Brunner and three state officials will present a draft public health assessment of Richmond’s Campus Bay site during a public meeting Thursday night.
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A bomb scare forced evacuation of Bayer employees in West Berkeley Wednesday morning, ending only after the Berkeley bomb squad blasted a suspicious suitcase with water and found nothing but papers inside.
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Four people who did not have 20 valid signatures on their nomination forms, as required by state law, were disqualified from running in Berkeley’s 2008 municipal elections Monday, city officials said.
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More than 100 local activists, city officials and community members—some in wheelchairs—paid homage to Dona Spring, one of Berkeley’s most beloved public figures, at a memorial gathering at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park Sunday.
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The Second District Court of Appeal reversed itself and ruled Friday that parents in California had the right to homeschool their children even if they lacked teaching credentials under state law.
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AC Transit says it wants to get community feedback on the re-engineered Van Hool buses soon to go out on local routes, but the timing of the district’s public input process appears to make it unlikely that any suggestions or criticisms will come in time to have much effect on the buses’ manufacture.
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Three state appellate court justices said Thursday that it is too soon for them to hear the plaintiffs’ appeal challenging the trial court decision on UC Berkeley’s plans for Memorial Stadium and the adjacent grove The ruling leaves an injunction barring construction and demolition of the grove in place at least until after a hearing later this month.
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Parents, teachers and athletic coaches crowded inside the Berkeley High School library Wednesday for their first look at the Berkeley Unified School District’s new design for classrooms and sports facilities to replace the landmarked Old Gym on Milvia Street.
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With only one day left for candidates to file for the November elections, online filing records at the offices of the Alameda and Contra Costa Registrar of Voters indicate that not many have yet taken the plunge.
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The University of California released its annual employee compensation report last week, reporting both the base pay and gross pay, as well as overtime pay, of its 170,000 employees. UC Berkeley has 21,836 employees.
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City Manager Phil Kamlarz talks about belt-tightening and eliminating vacant positions in these hard budget times. Still, city workers—many of them, at least—won’t be dining on bread and water, according to reports received by the Daily Planet.
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A memorial service for former councilmember Dona Spring, who died July 13, will be held from 2-4 p.m. Sunday at Civic Center Park (Martin Luther King Jr. Way, between Center Street and Allston Way). Seating at the memorial service is park-style, so those who attend are asked to bring blankets or folding chairs. Wheelchair users will be given priority for the paved areas in front.
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Features

If a proposal by the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission is approved by the City Council in September, Berkeley residents will have to wait longer for senior citizen discounts for some city programs.
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The Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission will decide whether to designate the childhood home of noted writer and environmentalist David Brower as a city landmark at a public meeting today (Thursday).
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Visitors, business travelers and international students at UC Berkeley might soon be able to stay in the city for up to a year without having to worry about signing leases or dealing with fussy landlords.
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Cody’s Books, which closed down forever on June 20 and is currently in the process of liquidating all its assets, will not provide any books or refunds to customers with store credit, according to company officials.
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Nolo Press, which has operated out of a renovated clock factory in West Berkeley for the last 30 years, plans to move from its location at Ninth Street and might relocate from Berkeley altogether, company officials said.
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More than 30 West Berkeley residents supported the Berkeley Unified School District’s plans to refurbish the old Bonar Street red-brick building at West Campus at a community meeting Monday. The district plans to use the building as its new headquarters.
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Oakland City Councilmember Desley Brooks filed a defamation lawsuit last week against the San Francisco Chronicle and its East Bay columnist, Chip Johnson, over an item written about her by Johnson in a June 24 column.
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Igor Tregub, 23, a recent UC Berkeley graduate, was the top vote-getter at a convention this week to pick five progressive candidates to run on as a slate for the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board.
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Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) workers across the Bay Area held protests outside DMV offices on Monday to protest Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to reduce state worker wages to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour from the California minimum wage of $8 per hour.
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As reported in the Berkeley Daily Planet, no city official will disclose which members of the Berkeley City Council supported or opposed the possible appeal of what may be the city’s most controversial court loss this year.
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AC Transit began displaying a proto-type Van Hool 40-foot, two-door, low-aisle bus in June. After a few mechanical fixes, it is now ready for the rubber to hit the road. And they have prepared a survey for riders.
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Although the focus in the court room and the press has been on the significance of a beautiful stand of coastal live oaks west of Memorial Stadium, lawsuits filed by the City of Berkeley and the Panoramic Hill Association have, from day one, also been directed toward public safety and quality of life (traffic) impacts from the entirety of projects officially named the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects (SCIP).
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Two three years from now, looking back at this upcoming election, with an Obama or McCain in the White House, how might we tell if their promise of change has, or is being, fulfilled? Yes, here during the summer of 2008, awaiting election day, we have been promised change, and change we do desire. But what that change might consist of remains elusive, vague. What we do have, and in abundance, is rhetoric, the promise of change. Of course, we know for certain, come Jan. 20, one kind of change that we will surely get is the departure of President Bush. But if that is all, if nothing else, noting substantial changes, then will we still be content to say that change indeed has occurred?
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It is not widely known that a new, updated seismic hazard evaluation method has been adopted by UC Berkeley as their new standard for review of their construction projects. This state-of-the-art evaluation methodology, developed by URS (a major engineering and consulting firm based in San Francisco), is detailed in the firm’s report, “Updated Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Evaluation and Development of Seismic Design Ground Motions.” It uses the latest data and research about fault hazards to predict building motions and possible damage during any major earthquake.
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Recent revelations about Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) support the reservations expressed by critics. The extent of the harm this entrepreneurial free-for-all threatens to do to our community goes beyond the imaginings of early naysayers. Ever since David Stoloff’s hand was stayed from surreptitiously giving the Ashby BART parking lot to his developer pals there have been continuous attempts upon Berkeley’s buildings and rights of way: Laurie Capitelli’s recent assault on North Berkeley at Shattuck and Rose, stymied for now by people who live and work there; the Southside plan—a monumental script for inconvenience and pedestrian and bicycle un-safety. But that won’t happen for some time if at all.
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Editorial

On your left! Slow Food, coming up fast. A movement once associated with European elites will be convening in San Francisco over Labor Day weekend, bringing an advertised 50,000 devotees along to celebrate the virtues of thinking globally but eating locally.
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Columns

Once upon a time, John McCain merited his reputation as a maverick politician, a “truth teller.” Reporters fought to get on his campaign bus, “the straight talk express,” because they expected to hear the Arizona senator spew uncensored opinions on a variety of subjects. Alas, those days are over. Three months from the presidential election, McCain has decided his only hope of besting Barack Obama is to wage a negative campaign. Get on board the trash talk express.
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It is understandable why there is considerable anxiety and antsyness amongst the Democratic Party faithful as we enter summer’s doggish days. We have, after all, seen this played out twice before in recent elections—a lead beginning to slip away in a presidential race in which all the stars seemed lined up for a Democratic win. In both instances—2000 and again in 2004—the Democratic candidates were done in by a combination of their own mistakes and a Republican manipulation of electoral rules to disenfranchise key Democratic constituencies as well as playing upon the shallowest instincts of the electorate (as well as, of course, the help of a Supreme Court largely picked by one of the candidate’s Daddies). Thus went Gore. Thus went Kerry. Thus goes Obama?
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I’m gratified to see that the History Channel is branching out into prehistory, with a new series on the evolution of various organs and systems. They started off last week with the eye and did a reasonable job, although the program was shamelessly vertebrate-centric: no mention of the remarkable eyes of the mantis shrimp, or the sophisticated camera eye of the octopus, so much like our own. (Richard Dawkins says eyes have evolved independently at least 40 times in the animal kingdom; no hope of covering all that in an hour, less commercials.)
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Arts & Events

Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement, and filmmaker Masaou Yamamoto will show a documentary film-in-progress on the Longest Walk 2, a walk across America for the environment, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original Longest Walk for Native American rights. Banks will speak, tell stories and play drums in a performance on the theme with dancer/choreographer Mary Sano and pianist/songwriter Tony Chapman. 7 p.m. Tues. Aug. 12 at the Mary Sano Studio of Duncan Dance, 245 Fifth St. #314, San Francisco. (415) 357-1817 or info@duncandance.org $10-15.
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Home & Garden

On April 30, 1906, Chief of Police August Vollmer observed an aged woman receiving supplies at the YMCA headquarters, where refugees of the San Francisco earthquake and fire were given food and clothing. Vollmer identified her as Honora Bentley, a well-to-do West Berkeley property owner who lived in apparent poverty at 2439 Ninth Street.
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The weather has been so nice lately. I always tell myself that when it finally gets nice, I’ll get out and finish my arbor. My poor neighbors have to look at that thing all year, and you’d think that with what I know about construction, I’d just get it done, but Noooo. I just want to loll around the house looking for more 1 point snacks and watching YouTube.
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